Board Game Review - Nagaraja

Recently, my wife and I tried out the 2-player game Nagaraja. I knew hardly anything about this game but had heard some good buzz and the theme and mechanics sounded interesting.  

Nagaraja is a tile laying, route building, hand management game. Each player is a treasure hunting archaeologist trying to find the most treasure in one of two ‘twin temples.’ 

Each round, a new room tile is revealed. Players secretly bid cards which determine how many sticks and which type of sticks they get to roll. The player who rolls the most Fate symbols on the sticks will get to place the room tile in their temple to proceed with exploration. 

But first, if a player rolls any Naga symbols, they can play a card from their hand to use its actions. Card actions could change the result of the roll or have a number of other effects that could be an advantage to them or sabotage their opponent.   

As tiles are placed, a route is build from the temple entrance to hidden treasures. Once a route reaches a treasure, that treasure is revealed. The first player to score 25 points is the winner. But beware. The first player to reveal 3 cursed treasures immediately loses.  

 I found this game rather intriguing. There’s a tough balance between using your cards to roll the best sticks or holding onto a card for its special action. The paths on the room tiles make for interesting choices of wanting to try and win a tile or being willing to pass it up because the path may not be ideal for your current setup.  

We have a number of “go-to” 2-player games already on our list and I don’t think this will supplant any of those, but this is a solid game and one I’d be willing to pull out from time to puzzle through the strategy and try to outwit and outrace my opponent to fortune and glory. 😃😏 

 

#Boardgames #Boardgame #2PlayerBoardgame #Nagaraja #Hurrican #HurricanEdition

3 out of 5 stars